The Rich Source Of Indulgence

By R. W. APPLE Jr.

Published: June 11, 2003

COAD'S GREEN, England—
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, the great Victorian prime minister, called clotted cream ''the food of the gods.'' George Blake, a Briton who spied on his own country and now lives in exile in Moscow, said recently that the only thing he really misses from his homeland is clotted cream to crown the Christmas pudding that he makes for himself every year.

Magnificent stuff it is, too -- rich, luxuriously thick and golden, the very essence of self-indulgence. It has been made here in the southwest corner of England, principally in the counties of Devon and Cornwall, which face each other across the River Tamar, for at least 600 years. The poet Edmund Spenser mentions ''clouted cream'' in ''The Shepheard's Calendar'' (1579).

Because a similar product is made in the East, notably in Lebanon and Afghanistan, the food historian Alan Davidson theorizes that the recipe may have been brought to Cornwall 2,000 years ago by Phoenicians who sailed here to trade in tin.

Clotted cream is made by scalding either whole milk or fresh cream. It is a tricky process. Get it too hot and the cream develops a gritty texture. If it is not hot enough, the result is bland.

The finished product can be spooned or spread but not poured; it has a consistency somewhere between that of butter and that of whipped cream. In winter, when the cows must eat fodder, the clotted cream is the color of hazelnuts, but when the grass in the pastures is green, the cream is yellow as a jonquil.

As a topping for desserts -- apple pie, for instance, or the steamed ginger and rhubarb pudding at the delightful Arundell Arms Hotel in Lifton, Devon, or a simple bowl of fresh, downy berries -- clotted cream is nonpareil. As an ingredient in cooked dishes, sweet or savory, it adds an unmistakable lushness. But it achieves its apotheosis when slathered shamelessly onto a warm scone, together with homemade preserves.

A. E. Rodda & Son, based at Scorrier in Cornwall, is the largest producer, using the milk of more than 7,000 cows during the peak season. Rodda cream was served at tea time by the late Queen Mother. It is served on British Airways planes, and it is also exported to the United States, Japan, Australia and many other countries.

In my view, though, the best, most sensually satisfying clotted cream comes from small producers using methods handed down through generations. Perhaps the most tradition-minded of all is Barbara Lake, 58, who lives near this hamlet in the 300-year-old house in which she was born.

The house is approached down a narrow lane lined with eight-foot hedgerows so extravagently studded with pink, yellow, blue and white wildflowers that my wife, Betsey, said she felt as if she were driving through a roll of wallpaper.

Ms. Lake, a stocky woman in trousers, flowered sweater and boots, keeps 11 cows, about half Jerseys and half Guernseys. These fawn-colored breeds, both of which originated in the Channel Islands, off the French coast, produce milk with an exceptionally high percentage of butterfat.

A one-woman show, Ms. Lake milks her herd morning and evening, separates the cream from the milk and puts the cream into a shallow enamel pan. (She feeds the skim milk to her pigs.)

She took me into a square low-ceilinged room, about 12 feet by 12 feet, which contains a table piled high with newspapers and magazines, a few chairs, a television set, a small sideboard and an old oil-fired Rayburn stove. She cooks her meals on the stove, and she cooks her cream there, too.

The enamel pan floats in a larger aluminum pan filled with hot water, forming a primitive sort of bain-marie or double boiler. Ms. Lake heats the cream to no more than 85 degrees Celsius, which takes about an hour and 45 minutes. It must not boil. After a time, small bubbles rise to the surface, and then the cream darkens as a blister-marked crust forms on top.

Having cooled for two or three hours, the clotted cream goes into the refrigerator. When Ms. Lake gets an order, she ladles some into a quarter-pound container -- ''a little crust from the top, a little smooth from the bottom in each one, for the best texture,'' she told me. She charges 65 pence, $1.07, if the customer picks it up.

The week I visited her, Ms. Lake made 42 pounds of cream on her stove. Using specially designed high-speed ovens, Rodda's makes about 10 tons a day.

IN spring and summer, you can't move a mile in the West Country without seeing signs offering cream teas, posted by hotels, restaurants, cafes, tea houses and working farms. No vacation in the region is considered complete without one. A cream tea is as essential a part of a visit here as a lobster dinner is to a trip to Maine or a bowl of clam chowder is to a weekend on Cape Cod.

English eyes sparkle when the talk turns to cream teas, and rigorous standards are enforced. The tea itself should be freshly made in a pot, of course, without resort to tea bags. The scones, which are large, firm biscuits, slightly sweetened and leavened with baking powder, should still be warm from the oven, but not hot. If they are hot, the cream will get runny; if they are cold, they will crumble in the hand.